


Majesty in Terrestrial Things

by beetle



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:24:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Written for the slashthedrabble prompts chosen by vinniebatman, “Famine and/or Feast." A series of thirty-two linked drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Majesty in Terrestrial Things

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Vague spoilers for XI, maybe? Major character deaths, though not the ones you might think.

 

I

  
  
When McCoy struggles to consciousness, head pounding fiercely, brain sluggish--jaw on  _fire_ \--he can't sit up.  
  
He opens his blurry, aching eyes and finds himself strapped to a narrow bunk.  
  
In . . . a shuttle. . . .  
  
 _But why--?_  He starts to wonder, then closes his eyes and stops trying to sit up.  
  
“Are you avake, Doctor?”  
  
Soft, timid voice, ridiculous damned accent.  
  
“Dr. Mc--”  
  
“Jim?”  
  
His voice is gruff, firm. He sounds like himself.  
  
That means everything is okay, except . . . the kid's hesitating. . . .  
  
“The Keptin vent down vith his ship,” Chekov says finally. Everything after that, McCoy just tunes out.  
  


II

  
  
Chekov knows where they are—of course he does. Starfleet's prize navigator, after all.  
  
What he doesn't know is how to repair the damaged communications system and warp drive. McCoy gets the sense the kid's barely keeping life-support and the impulse drive going. As it is, the shuttle's stifling hot, and lurching through space like a drunk.  
  
“The first Class-M planet ve find, ve vill land . . . or possibly crash,” Chekov says worriedly. He's barely slept since--  
  
“. . . vas pilot, not me! I? Am  _nawigator_. . . .“  
  
All McCoy's  _done_  is sleep.  
  
“. . . ai, Hikaru,  _Serdtse moie_. . . .”  
  
It sounds like the ensign might be weeping, but McCoy . . . is too numb, too far away. . . .  
  


III

  
  
Dying, as it turns out, is easy. Simply close your eyes, and let go. . . .  
  
McCoy splutters as Chekov drags him back above warm, salt-bitter water. Pukes up about a cupful of it while Chekov screams at him. Only the scream is more of a rasping creak.  
  
They were able to save all the rations, but not much water. What little they had is gone, now. Drops in the ocean.  
  
“. . . the Keptin's sacrifice in vain?!” Chekov rasp-creaks angrily, his blue eyes sunken in his starved face. “He  _died_  to give us this chance to live! So  _hold. On!_ ”  
  
McCoy sighs wearily.  
  
But holds on.  
  


IV

  
  
They spend days holding on to the huge container of rations--without opening it, lest the whole thing sink.  
  
Sunset of the fourth day the ensign, as listless and gaunt as McCoy, squints into the distance and starts paddling weakly against the current.  
  
“What in hell?” McCoy demands. It's all he has the energy  _to_  demand.  
  
Chekov still strokes determinedly on. It's only when he realizes McCoy isn't helping that he glances back, his face fierce and wan. “Land. Sir,” he pants out.  
  
It takes a minute for that to make sense, but even before it does, McCoy's paddling, too.  
  


V

  
  
Their first meal is cold, but dry.  
  
Starfleet rations, gobbled hastily under stars that are unfamiliar and cold: a beautiful, mocking reminder of what they once had. Of what's been lost to them--  
  
“Do you think anyvone vill find us?” Chekov ventures, when McCoy finishes retching up his rations.  
  
Covering the mess with sand, McCoy curls up on his side, closing dry, but stinging eyes.  
  
“Sure,” he lies, because lies are what shuts kids up, right? This kid's no different, for all that he's a genius, and McCoy hates him for that innocence. For being  _alive_ , while Jim's--  
  


VI

  
  
Chekov lobs his share of the day's rations into the surf and storms west up the beach, shoulders hunched angrily, bare feet kicking up wet sand.  
  
Even from a distance, McCoy can see how frayed and stir-crazy the boy's becoming. Chekov spends his days since they washed ashore searching the fringes of the island for fresh water sources. For a safe way into the emerald-green interior that beckons.  
  
McCoy . . . spends his days poking about through the strewn shuttle detritus, which tumbles in on the tides, in useless, clanking piles.  
  
Chekov never returns before dark. They never speak about their days.  
  


VII

  
  
Sometimes, while the kid's off on his futile missions, McCoy simply lays on the beach and sleeps.  
  
Sometimes, he dreams of his little angel, his Joanna. . . .  
  
Other times, he dreams of Enterprise. Of snarking with Spock, or joking with Scotty.  
  
Mostly, he dreams of laying in bed with Jim . . . not so much about having sex (though this happens, too. A lot). Mostly that Jim looks at him. Talks to him. Smiles at him, and kisses his eyelids.  
  
 _You worry too much, Bones,_  Dream-Jim murmurs, and McCoy wakes up, sometimes hard and hot, other times limp and spent. Always with tears on his face.  
  


VIII

  
  
In the dead of night, under a sky that's meaningless and immense, McCoy weeps.  
  
The kid pretends he doesn't hear. Obscurely grateful, McCoy tells himself that if Chekov is ever something besides angry he, McCoy, will extend him the same courtesy.  
  
But Chekov is nothing  _if not_  angry. Anger keeps him going, keeps him moving, keeps him distracted, unlike McCoy, whose focus on the recent past is faithful and unwavering.  
  
They are the only humans for millions of light years, and unable to bear the reminder. And so the days pass slowly, without conversation.  
  
If Chekov grieves, he does so silently, separately.  
  


IX

  
  
Perhaps it's the sunlight.  
  
Maybe human skin can't make vitamin D from sunlight turned dull-green by the atmosphere. Or perhaps they're suffering from PTSD.  
  
Whatever the case, McCoy knows he's going quietly mad, and that the kid is going with him, though not as quietly.  
  
It should be comforting to have company with which to go mad. To be able to watch another's dissolution, and not be eaten up by the unfairness of that--of a person ruined, then dismantled by circumstance.  
  
But there's no comfort to be had here. There's nothing but endless beach, and the agony of time.  
  


X

  
  
McCoy wakes from a nightmare calling for Jim, and finds Chekov kneeling over him expressionlessly.  
  
In this atmosphere, his eyes are the color of bronze patina, his grown-out curls a flat, faded auburn. Though he is physically healthy, he looks brittle, jaundiced, and unwell.  
  
“Vhen ve got back,” he starts softly, his face all grim angles. His Adam's apple bobs, and he begins again. “Hikaru and I vere going to vait till ve got back to Earth to have the ceremony, so ve could inwite our families.”  
  
He walks off without another word, leaving McCoy gaping and guilt-ridden.  
  


XI

  
  
Chekov leaves their fire-pit as he does every sun-up, but walks east, instead of west.  
  
He returns at noon, his eyes shining and bright in a way they haven't been since the crash--it isn't hard to get caught up in the pointing and arm-tugging. McCoy doesn't ask what the kid found (and the kid doesn't tell him). Just lets himself get dragged east, an hour's sun-drenched march.  
  
The eastern beach is rockier. The washed ashore shuttle-bits are larger, but dented: hull. Mangled impeller. Intact shuttle door. Beyond that. . . .  
  
“Look, Doctor!” Chekov points at the half-hidden cave near the treeline.  
  


XII

  
  
McCoy decides to stay where they came ashore.  
  
When he makes his intentions plain, Chekov doesn't try to dissuade him. Merely shrugs, and moves his half of the rations and some useful junk down the beach.  
  
 _If anyone comes for us,_  McCoy knows,  _this is where they'll look._ Here _. If someone isn't here, they'll leave without us._ He'll _leave again--_  
  
Suddenly he realizes that in his mind, their rescuers have become irrationally synonymous with a magically living and whole James T. Kirk.  
  
Leonard McCoy laughs. Because he's not going mad, after all. Of grief or loneliness or even unhappiness, no.  
  
He only wishes he were.  
  


XIII

  
  
For days after the ensign leaves, there's nothing to do but sleep. And sleep some more when he realizes he no longer has an appetite.  
  
Sometimes, he walks west up the beach . . . but never east. And he always returns to the Spot.  
  
Not the Spot where they'll be rescued, simply the Spot where he intends to die.  
  
One afternoon, he wanders somewhat farther west than normal and notices a bit of alloy lodged in the sand. He can just barely make out ridiculously beautiful, familiar things like model and serial number.  
  
 _His_  model and serial number.  
  
Kneeling, laughing, he digs his PADD free. . . .  
  


XIV

  
  
McCoy holds the ruined PADD for days, too dehydrated for tears.  
  
Eventually someone-- _Chekov_  snatches the PADD. Doesn't hurl it into the ocean (McCoy might've tried to kill him) but single-handedly clears a space between them, chucking detritus every which way. Then sand.  
  
When he's left with a rectangular pit two feet deep, Chekov solemnly hands McCoy back the last broken bit of his past. Stands up, and wanders a discreet distance down the beach.  
  
It would've been nice to have a photo of her. Just one. . . .  
  
An hour later, McCoy joins Chekov.  
  
They walk quietly to the cave.  
  
They don't return to the western beach.  
  


XV

  
  
The last things they need are blankets, warm as this planet is.  
  
But McCoy figures there'll  _eventually_  be a slightly-less-than-gorgeously-perfect season. Eventually.  
  
So he collects reeds and even the huge, stiff fronds from the treeline. Chekov accompanies him on that errand, as if McCoy's a toddler needs watching. And when he sees what McCoy does with the piles of flora, first he throws up his hands and stomps off.  
  
Then he glares, as McCoy weaves during dinner.  
  
Falls asleep huffing, while McCoy weaves under the stars. . . .  
  
The first blanket, when it's done, goes to Chekov, who blushes, and for once doesn't look angry.  
  


XVI

  
  
At first, he thinks Chekov is having a nightmare, the way he tosses and groans.  
  
Half-asleep, he drags himself around the banked fire, meaning to shake the kid's shoulder. When he gets there, Chekov's kicked off his reed-blanket, and . . . it's apparent what's vexing him has nothing to do with  _nightmares_.  
  
Fully awake now, McCoy watches the kid writhe, bite his lip, arch . . . and come, murmuring Russian gobbledygoop.  
  
McCoy stares at the spreading wet spot for a few moments more, then drags the blanket back over the kid.  
  
Back on his side of the fire, McCoy's own sleep is a long time returning.  
  


XVII

  
  
“Here.”  
  
McCoy looks up from the bit of a circuitry he'd been fiddling with to pass time.  
  
Chekov, standing in a bright ray of green sunlight, is holding out a familiar case. McCoy takes it with the reverence he'd accord the Holy Grail.  
  
The shuttle's emergency medical kit.  
  
It's dented, and the code-lock has fused shut, but. . . .  
  
When he looks up, he still can't see Chekov's face, but he  _can_  see the large, sharp stone the kid's holding.  
  
McCoy takes that, too.  
  
“Thanks, Chek--”  
  
Chekov doesn't stick around to see if he uses it, simply stalks off to another pile of junk.  
  


XVIII

  
  
The ensign has lost interest in the rubble completely, and resumed trying to find a safe way into the dense, green heart of the island.  
  
The treeline separating beach from soil is a thick, unbroken ring that ranks-and-files along a sharp, up-thrust ridge and down into a sheer valley. The way is, McCoy would tell the ensign, perilous no matter how you slice it. There's no guarantee of anything at the heart  _but_  more trees and less light.  
  
There hasn't been even a  _distant_  trill of bird-song. . . .  
  
But he doesn't need to tell Chekov, who mutters absently in Russian, as he picks at tasteless rations.  
  


XIX

  
  
Amongst the rockier shoals, McCoy's the one to discover the Ugly Fish.  
  
Like something between a catfish, a grouper, and a centipede, they're able to leave their shallows and crawl across the rocks to other pools.  
  
They ain't 'specially smart, but they're  _fast_.  
  
Chekov doesn't have the patience to bother about catching them, intrepid explorer that he is. But McCoy finally stops picking at broken junk and fashions bits of it into something useful.  
  
Within the week, he's in the shallows, fishin'-reel in hand, wearing nothing but ragged boxers.  
  
That evening, he and Ensign Chekov discover not only are Ugly Fish edible, they're  _delicious_.  
  


XX

  
  
McCoy rises late, as always.  
  
The sun is already ascending the vault of the Heavens, and--  
  
\--a soft moan (far different from the ensign's usual moans) startles him. He circles the fire-pit.  
  
Chekov is twisted, huddled, and cocooned in reed-blankets, but still shivering. His pale face is sheened in sweat, and his gaze, when it lands on McCoy, is fever-bright.  
  
“Sneeffles,” he insists hoarsely, smiling. His breathing is labored. “Is seelly--”  
  
Heart rabbiting, McCoy shakes his head.  
  
A moment later, he's picking his way down to the beach, and the sharpest goddamned rock he can find.  
  


XXI

  
  
He has spent  _weeks_  staring at this kit, and now it's finally been unlocked.  
  
Dropping the stone, he hesitates . . . then Chekov coughs, and MCoy flips the case open.  
  
Inside are hypos, bandages, laser scalpels, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories--so many things he hadn't wanted to know he'd be doing without. But in the center of this treasure trove . . . is a tricorder.  
  
Unaware that he's happy, for the first time in the months since the crash, McCoy makes his way to Chekov's side.  
  
An hour later the boy seems, if anything, markedly worse.  
  
It's all McCoy can do not to hurl the tricorder to the ground.  
  


XXII

  
  
Leonard McCoy hasn't prayed for salvation--not once--since Joanna died.  
  
Even that very last prayer hadn't been for salvation. For a man of  _his_  iron-clad faith, his angel's salvation was a conclusion foregone. No, he'd simply prayed her death had been easier on her than dying had.  
  
But here, at last, he prays for salvation. Not for his soul, or Chekov's. He prays that the boy live another day, fevered and raving. Because  _even_  fevered and raving, he's another face, another voice, another occupant in this Hell McCoy is trapped in.  
  
So, tears dripping off his nose onto the boy's restless hand, Leonard McCoy prays. . . .  
  


XXIII

  
  
He hasn't slept since he discovered the ensign was ill. But after four days of no sleep, Leonard McCoy has a waking dream:  
  
 _”It'll be okay, Bones,” Jim promises. They're in the ready-room on the Enterprise. They're_ home _, and McCoy. . . .  
  
. . . breaks down.  
  
Shakes and sobs while Jim holds him.  
  
Strokes his hair.  
  
Kisses him, and oh . . . those _kisses _. . . .  
  
“Don't leave me. Please?” McCoy begs.  
  
“Seelly . . . I newer left you.” Jim leans back to grin at him, brass patina-eyes shining through grown-out curls. “I--_  
  
“--am so.  _Thirsty_. . . .” Chekov rasps weakily, his clear gaze burning away the last of the dream.  
  
The fever's finally broken.  
  


XXIV

  
  
If McCoy'd expected Chekov to be even more taciturn and withdrawn after his brush with death, he is proved at least half wrong.  
  
Not that Ensign Chekov's become a one-man gab-fest. But he's strangely reluctant to let McCoy out of his sight. Weak as he is, he nevertheless grabs McCoy's sleeve with all his strength, tired blue eyes pleading.  
  
“We need water, kid,” McCoy says, and they both start. It's the closest to an actual conversation they've had in. . . .  
  
Rattled, McCoy frees his sleeve and walks down to the beach, Chekov's gaze heavy and anxious on his back.  
  


XXV

  
  
The next words are a flood.  
  
A flood that starts with: “My mama isn't Russian. She vas originally from Poland.”  
  
“Huh,” McCoy grunts, trying to wrassle the damned shuttle door into place, but mostly just furrowing sand. If and when the weather turns, he means to have a way to block the cave entrance.  
  
Chekov watches his exertions from a nest of blankets. “Vhen I vas child in Moscow, eweryvone make fun of my theeck Polish accent--” he falls silent as the shuttle door tumbles back down to the beach.  
  
McCoy laughs for ten minutes straight.  
  


XXVI

  
  
It isn't long before the kid's well enough to take up fishing.  
  
No longer does he wander restlessly along the ridge, muttering to himself about ropes and pulleys for lowering oneself into the valley like a spelunker. He's happy to sit and catch their dinner, while McCoy wanders from water source to water source, filling the empty ration containers, or wandering down the beach, hoping to find useful things.  
  
Every evening he returns just before dark, sometimes empty-handed, sometimes not.  
  
They sit side by side, eating the fish Chekov caught--still ugly as sin, still delicious--and watching the stars come out.  
  


XXVII

  
  
One day, McCoy returns well after nightfall, from farther than he'd ever walked.  
  
He is dragging a huge, heavy case that's filled with extra clothing, all-weather/survival gear, and expandable shelters.  
  
It's an embarrassment of riches, and Chekov--already grinning and glowing because he'd caught more fish than McCoy'd ever managed to--cheers him extravagantly, but goes still and silent when McCoy selects a dark, fleecy sweater and helps him into it with more care than is strictly necessary.  
  
Once he has the sweater perfectly adjusted, patina-on-bronze eyes meet his own.  
  
It's Chekov who leans in first, but McCoy  _does_  meet him halfway.  
  


XXVIII

  
  
As predicted, there  _is_  an off-season, and it's  _miserable_ \--pours buckets all day, sheets down intermittently at night.  
  
McCoy and Chekov take turns fishing (the Ugly Fish  _love_  the rain. As a result, he and the kid eat better than they have in over eight months), and come in water-logged and prune-skinned.  
  
“Vell, at least rain eesn't  _cold_ ,” Chekov tsks, peeling off McCoy's t-shirt and shorts.  
  
“You're one of them damned 'glass-half-full' people, ain'tcha?”  
  
Chekov blushes, pink-cheeked and pretty, and . . . McCoy yanks him close. Applies himself to kissing every warm, dry inch of Chekov-flesh available.  
  
The kid doesn't stay dry for much longer.  
  


XXIX

  
  
The weather turns dry and chill after five, rain-drenched weeks.  
  
Days are overcast with melancholy, milky-jade light. The kind of days made for staying in your cave with the shuttle-door pulled closed, piling clothing and bedding into one big, soft bed, and making love to your . . . lover . . . all day.  
  
(When you're not fucking him cross-eyed, that is.)  
  
On more ambitious days, time may be made for bundling up and walking hand-in-hand down the beach. Talking about absolute nothings that mean absolutely everything. . . .  
  
Then hurrying back to your cave to cuddle until dinner--which is eaten  _al fresco_  as the stars come out.  
  


XXX

  
  
“I wonder how big this damn place  _is,_ ” McCoy mutters, squinting eastward, into the yellow-verdigris-hunter-green sunset.  
  
The beach goes on as far as the eye can see, and he's thinking that their island may actually be an isthmus that's part of a much larger land-mass.  
  
Forget the valley behind them, what of the entire  _world_  ahead?  
  
Chekov's arms slide around his waist, and wet, open-mouthed kisses trail down the back of his neck.  
  
“You are . . . okay,  _so'lnyshko_?” the kid asks, and McCoy turns to face him. To kiss sweet, soft lips.  
  
“Mm . . . better, now.”  
  
The answer'll wait awhile, yet.  
  


XXXI

  
  
They pile everything into the huge clothing container.  
  
“Everything” is little more  _than_  the clothing, survival gear, remaining rations, and the reed-blankets, which'll do nicely for sleeping rough till they find another cave or . . . who knows? Maybe even civilization. . . .  
  
“Don't get your hopes up, though,” McCoy warns as they close the container and look around the cave one last time.  
  
Even if the beach goes on forever and ever . . . they won't be coming back here.  
  
Chekov hugs himself, looking forlorn.  
  
“But ve forget  _something_ ,” he insists absently. Then laughs and murmurs, “ah, yes,” when McCoy grins, and drops to his knees.  
  


XXXII

  
  
McCoy doesn't notice the stars anymore, when he and Chekov lay under them.  
  
What he  _does_  notice, is this boy . . . this young man . . .  _Pavel_  is  _lovely_. A wonder of warmth and comfort . . . a beauty to rival the sky above.  
  
“Do you think anyvone vill find us?” Pavel gazes raptly up at the stars, raising off and lowering onto McCoy's cock gingerly, then more enthusiastically. Unwilling to lie, McCoy smiles--thrusts harder, and works the kid's cock till they both come, groaning and gasping.  
  
There is majesty to be found in terrestrial things . . . and in time, McCoy knows, Pavel will stop looking to the stars altogether.  
  



End file.
